


Take This Sinking Boat and Point it Home

by dedougal



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:41:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedougal/pseuds/dedougal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Derek wakes up, he's there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take This Sinking Boat and Point it Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [comedicdrama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comedicdrama/gifts).



> This came from a prompt from comedicdrama fro Derek/Stiles and hurt/comfort. It was only supposed to be a short drabble. I don't know how well I hit the prompt but I enjoyed writing it. Hope you like, sweetheart. Title from "Falling Slowly" from the Once soundtrack.

“Can you move?” The voice is unfamiliar and Derek puts all his effort into swimming out of the unconscious haze that last explosion had thrown him in. But he’s obeying even before he’s really conscious, one foot twitching and his hand coming up to wipe at his face. He can feel the blood and dirt caking it now and he’d desperate to get it off, iron scent mixed with iron.

The voice lets out a shaky laugh, utterly humorous. “Well, you can move. Can you talk? Can you understand me? Parley-vouuus anglay?” The attempt at a French accent is appalling. “Hablo-“

“I can understand you.” Derek finally manages to persuade his eyes to open. His voice doesn’t sound like his. It sounds like he’s been screaming for weeks. From the expression on the face leaning over him, there’s a real possibility that might be what he’s been doing. The face is sweet. Derek has to take a moment to process that, aware that he’s looking directly at the guy, staring even, for way too long. Full lips, short scrub of hair, kind amber eyes. Despite his pain he can see how one day he’d like to possess this.

“Good. Um. Do you know where we are?” The guy (kid? Nah, he’s not that young. Hopefully) bites his lip and Derek wants to stop him, sooth the hurt with his own mouth. If he wasn’t gross and drenched in dirt and blood and something that smells like oil. Then the ‘we’ gives him pause.

“There was an explosion. My car… I think I was thrown free.” The guy – Amber, Derek names him – vanishes from Derek’s line of vision. It’s then he realises that he can’t really turn his head. It’s nothing to do with the injury. There’s a collar around his neck. It could be one of those accident and emergency ones but it doesn’t smell medicinal. It smells of magic and restraint and silver.

Amber comes back with a cloth, damp, and runs it over Derek’s face. The water is stale.

“Where are we?” Derek asked, starting to feel desperate. There’s a sudden noise from outside, a roar. It sounds almost like a football game or a rock concert. People baying for entertainment.

“I don’t know.” Amber sits down beside Derek and places a warm hand on his collarbone, under whatever is wrapped around his neck. Derek’s pulse jumps. “But I don’t think it’s going to be good for either of us.”

 

Derek drifts in and out of consciousness but he can feel himself healing. It’s slower than normal. He’s not sure why but he suspects it might be the restraint around his neck. He thinks back on his day, trying to make sense of this, of where he might be. He’d been driving into town, fallen into some kind of routine - which is dangerous, he knows – just to grab whatever he could from the traders who were passing through. His car shouldn’t even be working, he knows, but he’s been careful and looked after it, adapting it to run on the huge batteries that take up most of the back seat and trunk space. He loves that car. It should be his means of a quick escape.

The explosion was… There was the road, rutted with pot-holes, and the trees and then a flash of light that he’d almost tasted. The car had rolled and then Derek doesn’t remember any more. 

Amber stays close beside him. Quite often he touches Derek just to make sure he’s still alive. Derek knows that the need to sleep will mean he heals quicker and he doesn’t make conversation. He’s also trying to listen, to hear anything that will let them know where they are, who has them. What’s going on.

 

Derek finally wakes up. The quality of the gloom in the room they’re in has changed. It’s darker now but there’s still a hint of light. “Is it night?”

“Yeah. I think so. There’s a mostly boarded up window. They seem to be running some kind of artificial lights though.” Amber vanishes from his side and scurries back. “I can’t see much.”

Derek lets out a soft grunt. He tries to sit up but can’t. He can breath and he swallows the spit in his mouth okay, but his arms and legs won’t shift at all.

 

Derek’s working towards panic, focusing on Amber – no, he had a name. Stiles. Strange name – and his constant stream of words to try and stop himself screaming, when there’s a commotion outside the door. Derek hears it first, of course. Stiles is only human. But when Stiles hears the scrabble at the door, the click of locks being opened, chains being moved, he starts skittering backwards, curling into a ball in the corner. Derek still can’t move.

“Lots of locks, huh,” Stiles says, eyes flicking between Derek and the door. “Which makes me think why they need to? I’m just poor little me, after all.”

Derek keeps his eyes on the door. He can’t see much more than the top half and he has to rely on his ears to know that there are four people out there, including one who’s flicking the safety catch on a pistol on and off. Derek knows what that sounds like a little too intimately for comfort. Stiles is safely back from the door when it opens but they grab him out of the corner anyway. It’s only when a familiar face leans over him that he realises what’s happened. Gerard Argent, pale face set into an expression that’s half cruelty and half smug pleasure. He runs his fingertips over Derek’s collar.

“Nice to see you again, Hale.” Gerard straightens and, just past his shoulder, Derek could see Stiles hanging between two of Gerard’s goons, a red mark showing where he’d been hit blooming on the side of his forehead. Derek tries to move but all his straining is for naught.

They take Stiles out and then it’s Derek’s turn, hauled up onto two of Gerard’s men’s shoulders. Derek feels like a sack of potatoes, a haunch of beef, for all that he takes pleasure in the fact that they’re struggling to carry him. Then he is pulled out of the cabin and dragged along a narrow dirt path. Being unable to even turn his head means that he can’t look around, get the lie of the land, plan his escape, but he did think they were in a fairly big compound. There are certainly a lot of people around, from the sounds of yelling and shouting and cheering that’s going on somewhere ahead of them. Most of the buildings seemed to be of new wood, although there are a couple of older concrete structures left over from Before that they seemed to be heading towards.

Derek has kept himself to himself, living on the fringes, since It happened. He hasn’t been around this many people in a long, long time. Even Before, he’d tended to avoid huge crowds. He didn’t like the mess, the confusion, the overload on his senses that people brought. He’d tried to stay away from cities, despite the fact Laura had loved them. Now, of course, all the cities are ash and rubble and graves.

Derek is carried through an honest to god door and thrown into a corner. Stiles is here too, eyes glazed over still from the hit to the head. At least he’s vaguely conscious – conscious enough to tug Derek’s head into his lap from where it landed against his thigh. Derek can see the whole room now. And beyond.

The room is obviously some kind of holding pen and perhaps a torture chamber. The scent of blood, old and new, covers every surface. There’s a huge window space in the far wall, with clear plastic tacked over it. Derek can see an enclosure beyond, an amphitheatre, an arena. Take him back two thousand years and it could be ancient Rome. The crowd is seated around the circular “performance” space, chatting and eating and ignoring the people sweeping the rough sand, covering the blood from what Derek presumes is the last fight.

Gerard heads to the door. “I was just going to carve in you half, for what you did to my daughter. But I think I like this better.” He chuckles, the kind of flat unfunny sound that sent chills down the spine. “We’ll even take your collar off first. Better show and all.”

Derek glares but it made no difference. Gerard is still chuckling grimly to himself as he locks the door.

“Who is he?” Stiles’s voice is a masterclass in shaky pretending to be fine. At least Stiles has enough self-preservation to know Gerard is dangerous.

“He…hunts. Hunts people like me.” Derek can’t look at Stiles to try to reassure him. He feels Stiles’s thigh tense under his head before Stiles lets out a low, shuddering breath. 

“People like you, huh? Gorgeous and built?” It takes an effort and the joke falls a little flat, but Derek appreciates the fact Stiles was trying. Another place, another time and he might even take advantage of that, wreck Stiles's mobile mouth with his own.

It feels strange to be admitting his deepest secret to a complete stranger but Derek has the feeling that he isn’t really going to either be able to hide his secret much longer or actually survive whatever Gerard has in store for him. Derek suspects that he is intended to be thrown into the amphitheatre, torn apart by whatever nasties Gerard has rounded up. “I’m a werewolf.”

Stiles’s leg shifts but he doesn’t shove Derek off or run screaming. “That makes sense.” Derek feels Stiles’s hand start to work through his hair, drawing out tangles and leaves as he teases it. It seems that Stiles needs something to focus on, to do something with his hands. “I was trying to find my friend, Scott. He was bitten last year.”

Derek doesn’t know a Scott. He doesn’t really know anyone anymore. He’d hidden himself as well as he knew but, he thinks with some considerable bitterness, obviously not well enough. They’d still caught him, trapped him. Stiles is still stroking his fingers through Derek’s hair, the nervous twitch becoming increasingly soothing. If Derek was the type to do this, to give into the urge to seek something before he’s wheeled out to his inevitable death, he might ask Stiles to kiss him, to show him some of the affection that he’s been missing ever since his family burned up.

“He’s been obsessed with this girl, Allison, and I knew he was going to be spending his weekend with her. And I’m all ‘how can you date when the world is ending’ and he’s all ‘when’s better’ and he kinda has a point but I’m not giving him that and he didn’t come back.” Derek interprets the flow of words as a nervous tick. The name of Scott’s girlfriend sets off some bells though – alarm ones, screaming klaxons wailing out. 

“What’s Allison’s surname?” Derek asks. There’s movement out in the arena now, people shuffling back to seats, the sands being cleared. They haven’t come for him yet, though.

“Argent. Alliteration, huh? I mean, my name alliterates but by choice. No one could ever spell my name let alone pronounce it and I liked the nickname. It made me stand out. But it was also like, surely, alliteration is cheesy and a bit tacky.” Stiles runs out of words as two gates opened at opposite ends of the arena and a couple of people are shoved through. Derek can’t make it out from here but the way the crowd roared suggested something violent was beginning. When one of the figures shifts into beta form, Derek understands what he’s seeing.

“She’s Gerard’s grand-daughter.” Derek knows that through Kate. Kate who is from Before and who he’d thought he’d managed to finally stop having so much power over him. “I knew her aunt.”

“So Scott…?” Stiles’s hands tighten in Derek’s hair before soothing through it again.

Derek feels a sigh work its way out of his chest. “Unless Allison has some kind of influence or isn’t in the family business? I’d say your friend is going to be tossed out there shortly.” 

The fight in front of them is coming to a rapid conclusion. The wolf shifts between human and wolf as the apparent human uses a wicked looking rod that sparks electricity to hold him down. Derek can almost feel the burn that the electricity would leave, feel the bullets. 

The crowd howls as the wolf is sliced in half. Stiles lowers himself over Derek, trying to block out the view. Derek focuses on the scattering of moles across Stiles’s jaw as the wet, slick sound of guts spilling seems to fill his ears. 

 

They come for him then, pull him to his feet and leave Stiles behind. He is towed along another one of the dirt paths surrounding the building before being dragged down a set of steps and forced into a cage. The bars at the far side open directly into the arena and the blood and sweat stench is overwhelming. Derek lies there, face down into the dirt. He wants to rend and tear. He wants to break these bars with his bare hands. He can feel the rage building and he wants – needs – to shift. But the collar-

“Good.” It’s Gerard. “It’s good that you’re angry. Give us a show and you won’t be dead tonight, Hale.” He started to walk away. “I hope you don’t.”

Then someone presses something to the back of the collar and it falls away. Derek is on his feet the moment he can get them under him but the bars merely makes him hiss when he tries to break them. There is electricity running through them and they are coated in what must be wolfsbane. Derek’s palms burn. There’s laughter from the crowd surrounding him, all hunters by the look of it. Derek waits, letting his hands heal. He can’t let them see him hurt.

He wonders about the electricity instead. Most people don’t have that much power these days. Generators that run on solar power are great but don’t last that long or put out this much of a current. Some of the conspiracy nuts Derek has met said the government have a secret stash of oil, which Derek had dismissed out of hand and just got on with his life. But maybe it isn’t so much the government as the hunters that have caches. It still doesn’t make sense, though. Why would Gerard run something so ridiculous as a gladiatorial arena? With werewolves? 

Derek laughs, enjoying the way the hunters shift back from his back. When have hunters ever been sane?

The gate opened but Derek doesn’t move until he’s prodded in the back by another one of those electrified rods. He stumbles out onto the sand and dirt to face whatever comes out of the gate opposite. Behind him, the cage door slams shut. A kid – no older than Stiles – is eventually pushed out of the door opposite. He has messy dark hair and is wearing a low pair of long shorts. He should be skateboarding along a sunny street, not fighting for his life. His eyes flash yellow gold as he catches sight of Derek and he drops into a low crouch, his upraised hand already showing claws.

Derek knows who this must be. He sends a glance in the direction of the concrete building, hoping Stiles realises he knows this must be Scott. Scott, on the other hand, rushes him, not waiting for Derek to attack. He sounds half crazed as he ploughs Derek over, slashing across his ribs. Shallowly. Too shallowly to account for the attack.

Derek rolls them over, pushing Scott into the dirt. He makes a big show of flourishing his claws as he whispers, “Are you Scott?”

Scott nods and bucks up, making Derek fall back into his own crouch. Then they circle each other, dashing in to cause cosmetic wounds and make the blood spray. Derek’s shirt is hanging by rags now and he’s soaked in sweat from the constant movement. But in between the fakery and the dancing around, he and Scott exchange terse sentences.

“Stiles?” Scott asks. At least that’s his first thought as he drags his teeth across Derek’s shoulder, ripping Derek’s t-shirt more than anything.

“Up there. He’s looking for you.” Derek risks a quick glance up.

“Allison?” That makes him snarl and toss Scott across the arena, battering him into one of the wooden posts surrounding the arena.

“Argent.” That should be explanation enough.

Neither he nor Scott are doing more than making this look good. But it’s still tiring them out and Derek can see Gerard now, in the stands, his hands clenched in fury. “We need to get out of here.”

“Not without-“ Scott launches straight at him and Derek falls back to use his feet to slam Scott into another post, making the wall shudder.

“With Stiles. I get it.” Derek doesn’t want to analyse exactly why he wants Stiles to be there too. He has a feeling that it’s got something to do with the way Stiles ran his hands through Derek’s hair and the scatter of moles on his cheek. He stamps all that down, letting out a roar that echoes around and around the arena, making some of the crowd flinch and hold their ears. “Gerard. We need to-“

“No way we’re going to get to him.” Scott looks around as he runs forward again, teeth out. He catches Derek’s arm and they roll into a tussle.

“Toss me up there?” Derek can’t believe he’s suggesting this. He pictures it, launched like a cannonball, claws outstretched and jaw opened wide. He would tear Gerard apart.

Scott shakes his head, rolling over and kicking Derek in the stomach. “Electricity.” They separate again, both breathing heavily. Derek clutches his hand over one of the oozing wounds. He’s healing quicker than Scott is – makes sense. He’s an alpha and Scott is still a beta, if not an omega. 

There’s a commotion behind Derek and then something unexpected happens. All the lights flicker out. There are shouts and screams from the crowd. And Derek makes a split-second decision. “Now, Scott!”

He runs, hoping Scott gets it. And it turns out Scott does, making a cradle of his hands and helping Derek launch himself towards Derek. There’s a sound of cracking wood behind him as Derek clears the top of the palisade, claws outstretched as he’d imagined. There’s a satisfying crack as he lands on one of Gerard’s henchmen but he doesn’t take the time to enjoy it, Instead he lets himself go, loses himself in his animal nature and tears and rends like he’d promised himself. Eventually all that’s left is him and Gerard. There’s another scuffle behind him and then the lights flicker back on.

Gerard has his jaw set and his eyes show no fear. He circles around and Derek has to go with him. It’s then that Derek can see the group behind him. A dark-haired girl, too alike Kate to be anyone but Allison, holds a crossbow steady as she watches Gerard and Derek. Scott’s there too, Kate’s brother as well. Stiles’s shoulder is held firm in his hands, a gun cocked and ready under his jaw. There’s a bloody smear across his forehead and a bruise blooming on his cheek and Stiles is swaying but upright. 

“Stop it!” Allison screams. Derek’s not sure who she’s talking to. He uses the time to wipe some of the blood off his face with the back of his hand. Scott is glancing between them all. 

“Stop what, sweetheart?” Gerard’s voice is weirdly soft, affection. It’s creepy considering the way his hand is creeping towards the holster at his side. Derek’s so focused on him that he misses the shifting of one of the hunters on the ground. He only realises what it is when the taser hits him and Derek collapses to the ground. 

Events move like flashes of a strobe. Stiles elbows Chris Argent in the stomach, pulling away. Someone taught him how to fight, it seems. Scott leaps forward, ripping a chunk out of Gerard’s throat and Allison lets fly a bolt, thudding into the hunter attacking Derek. Chris is quick to point his gun at Scott but doesn’t count on Allison grabbing his arm, pulling the gun down. And Derek doesn’t count of Stiles skidding to the ground beside him. “You okay?”

The last of the electricity leaves him and Derek pushes himself up. Stiles and he lean on each other as Allison, Chris and Scott all avoid each other’s eyes over the crumpled form of Gerard.

Gerard Argent is gone. Derek feels a weight shift, a crack in the lump of ice that had been permanently lodged in his gut when he’d found out the truth about who Kate was. It had seemed fitting at the time that the world was going to hell just as his was falling apart. Some of the poison that had filled Derek then seemed to be seeping out. He knew Gerard had egged Kate on, given her the gasoline that she’d sprayed liberally around the house as well as the mountain ash to keep them all inside the house. Derek lifted his head to look steadily at Chris Argent. If Chris wanted revenge, he could take it and shove it. Derek had just stopped a monster.

The sound of Chris clicking the safety on his gun echoes around the arena. “We’re going to burn this place to the ground.”

 

Derek’s not sure when the last time he had a shower was, but as long as he’d here, he’s going to enjoy it. He lets the water wash away the dirt and the blood, feeling like himself again. The door to the bathroom opening brings him out of his trance, hypnotised by the hot water pounding against his back.

It’s Stiles. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

Stiles stares at Derek, who wraps the flimsy protection of the shower curtain around his nakedness. Stiles has obviously washed as well, and maybe eaten something, because he’s steady and steely eyes, jaw set in determination. Derek’s reminded of the nickname he gave Stiles – amber. There’s something rock hard here, age old focus. What Stiles wants, Stiles is going to get.

“Couldn’t wait?” Derek asks, trying to goad Stiles into something, movement. It works. Stiles pulls off the fresh t-shirt and kicks off his sneakers at the same time, hands working to shove down his pants and underwear almost before the t-shirt had hit the tiles.

“Why wait when the world is ending?” Stiles smiles wryly, echoing the bleakness of his statement. But since Derek’s world ended a few years before the rest of them, he’ll take the sentiment. When Stiles kisses him, pressing him back into the water, Derek starts to think that maybe his world isn’t quite over after all.


End file.
